


so i eat sleep drink and count the walls and tiles

by Plexus (toitsu)



Series: This charming man [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Levi has problems, M/M, PTSD?, i know i put it as Levi/Eren but there is barely anything about that here, sorry - Freeform, wow this was depressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:06:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toitsu/pseuds/Plexus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Companion piece for 'Asymmetries of loss'.<br/>Focuses on Levi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so i eat sleep drink and count the walls and tiles

**Author's Note:**

> since I have an exam in few days, of course I felt the need to write this. I hope you enjoy.  
> Title from a song 'Lakefront property' by Astronautalis.

i.

He is itching for a cigarette, almost constantly now that his days are empty and monotonous, how stupid, he stopped years and years ago, after the poverty but a little bit before the loyalty.

(Loyalty to the man now dead)

He is itching for a cigarette, for a blue smoke to break the monochromatic empty whiteness in his mind, for the taste to linger in his throat, he wants the panic of nicotine poisoning, he wants someone (the dead man, the missing woman) to tell him it's bad for his health.

It is raining and his shoulder hurts still, hurts more, it never stops hurting and rain makes it worse (but the sand is the worst, the oppressive summer heat, the bloody sand and the raining pieces of metal and body parts) and the painkillers never help (because somewhere in his head it will never _not_ hurt and Hanji would explain it to him, why is that, Hanji would, with her science jargon he never understood and her unwavering enthusiasm, Hanji would explain and he wouldn't understand, but she would explain)

(Hanji is missing)

(She has to be missing)

(Perhaps it would hurt less if she wasn't missing)

(But she is)

(She _has to be_ )

 

i.

He lives quietly in the solitude of the too big house provided for him after his discharge, neatly tucked away into some little quiet boring town where people take a step back and gawk when they see him; the sewer rat, the terror of the capital now pushed into anonymity, a soldier and a hero and _nothing_ to these people around him, nothing but a reminder that there is a world outside the picturesque countryside and that that world is not kind.

He lives quietly in the solitude of the too big house, alien in his home and in this town, the only company the ghost voices that keep fading and fading as the time goes, his ghosts are getting tired too, they want to rest. On his bad days he can't even make out what they are saying, the words are too quiet.

(His shoulder hurts and he keeps a loaded gun in his drawer and on his bad days he takes it out and contemplates his choices.)

(Because he lives quietly in the solitude of the too big house with nobody out there in the big bad world that means anything to him anymore and even his ghosts are leaving)

(But Hanji is still missing)

(She has to be)

(So he waits for her)

( _Idiot,_ the stupid woman would say)

 

i.

He doesn't need anybody's help and he certainly doesn't _ask_ for it; the last thing he needs is a stupid lazy brat to _help_ him around the house, he says as much when the two knock on his door, he's repeating himself, he's already said all that and more when they called him a year or two ago, offering the services.

He doesn't need nor want anyone, he's made it clear before.

(All the people he wants are _dead_ )

(Except Hanji.)

(She _can't be_ )

(But maybe he's had too much painkillers that morning, or too much alcohol instead of breakfast, or something, because the next thing he knows there is a disaster storming through his quiet empty house)

 

i.

He is itching for a cigarette, now, especially now, in the dangerously dwindling hours of solitude, he is itching for a cigarette in the colorful sunsets and the pale dawns and the dead of the night, he needs a distraction, a distraction from a human shaped mess that is Eren Yeager, a hurricane in form of a boy, the boy who calls him Corporal and doesn't know how much it hurts him and how much he needs it (boy boy boy, that dangerous boy and god help him but he needs a distraction)

(He needs Hanji. Erwin. He needs them. If he had them he wouldn't need a distraction because there would be no _reason_ to needa distraction)

(He wants his squad. His stupid squad, the stupid immature people who were competent enough to catch his attention and warrant taking them under his wing, his stupid stupid stupid squad, those insufferable kids.)

(Because if he had them he would never notice this one stupid insufferable brat who has somehow wormed his way into Levi's big empty house, and deeper, where it hurts)

He is itching for a cigarette, but settles for whiskey instead.

 

i.

He doesn't dream when he sleeps. He doesn't have to.

(It is sort of a background noise, the sound of car doors closing, the banter between Petra and Auruo, Erd behind the wheel. One minute before the explosion)

He doesn't dream. Not even of Yeager. _Sure you don't,_ Hanji would tease, which would just prove how little she actually knew him. He doesn't dream of Yeager.

(He doesn't have to. )

(Doesn't want to.)

( _Sure you don't,_ she would say. Perhaps she knew him inside out, after all)

 

i.

One minute before the explosion. He counts down the seconds, now that he knows what's coming. Forty five seconds. Erwin was still alive back then. Hanji was already missing. Thirty seconds. His squad. They were alive. Ten seconds.

Ten seconds. Ten seconds. Ten seconds. Ten seconds. In his mind the seconds stretch, the end never comes, the moment frozen in time. Ten seconds.

He doesn't count down the remaining seconds. The car still explodes.

 

i.

He surprises himself almost as much as he surprises Eren when he opens his mouth and starts talking, starts talking, starts talking, it's hard to talk but even harder to stop. Does he want to stop?

(Hanji would tell him it's about time he started)

(Hanji would tell him)

(If she wasn't _missing_ )

He tells Eren that Hanji is missing.

He also finds a bottle of whiskey because his mouth is full of sand and blood.

(There will always be blood and sand and no amount of whiskey will help it)

(But taking Eren to his bed might)

 

i.

He doesn't doubt the stupid brat will keep his promise.

But he doubts he will be here to witness it, a lonely man in his quiet, too big house in this alien town. He doesn't _want_ to be here to witness it. Eren deserves better, anyway. (He knows him well enough to know that Eren will never see it that way.)

( _You are an idiot, Levi,_ Hanji would say. If she wasn't missing)

(If she wasn't _dead_ )

(Like Levi soon plans to be)


End file.
